Recommended Stories For 1st Grade
Recommended Stories For 1st Grade
Recommended Stories For 1st Grade
There are, of course, many wonderful stories to be told during the First Grade. The
following are the ones that we feel shouldn’t be missed. (Be sure to check out the
recommendations for multi-cultural stories.)
Note: Be sure to intersperse traditional fairy tales with a healthy dose of humorous
tales…try to bring a light-hearted story at least once every couple of weeks. Remember-
love your story! Don’t tell it if it feels wrong or you can’t relate. Also, remember, in the
first grade you don’t have to tell each story verbatim. For example, you can add
descriptions of the food if a feast is mentioned for the phlegmatics or toss in some color
or animals for the sanguines. But, do hang on to the delicious vocabulary found in these
tales. Also, keep in mind that each character represents some aspect of the human
being, so don’t drop out a character without conscious thought.
Introduction to your first Language Skills block: Nothing could be better than Rudyard
Kipling’s How the First Letter Was Written found in his Just So Stories. This story will
have your students laughing with delight as Taffy’s “picture note” to her mother almost
causes the undoing of a very nice stranger (who is a “Tewawa”!) Don’t forget to create a
copy of her letter to show the students…most renditions of this story include a
template. (I changed the hills that they traveled over to mountains (a big one and a little
one) that they traveled through and used the story to introduce our first letter “M/m”.)
Letter Q: Margaret Peckham’s story about The Queen Who Lost Things is a great story
for introducing the letter “Q”. (Patti Connolly has an updated version found in the 1st
Grade story folder of our website.)
Favorites from the Grimm’s Brothers: Check with the Kindergarten teachers as to which
of these stories they told to their classes and avoid those.
Autumn Stories
Strong Hans
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
Twelve Huntsmen
Rumpelstiltskin
The Frog King or Iron Henry
Alphabet Images
Snow White and Rose Red (Letter Bb- with the bear, bushes, beard, bag, bird, etc. there
are many opportunities to delve into that sound. And the bear makes a nice “B” picture)
The Golden Goose (Letter Gg)
Fisherman and His Wife (Letter Ff)
King Thrushbeard (Letter Kk)
Simeli Mountain (Letter Mm)
Winter Stories
Twelve Brothers
Water of Life
Babushka, Russian holiday tale
The Sacred Flame, The Holy Night and The Flight into Egypt, in Christ Legends, Selma
Lagerlof,
http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=lagerlof&book=christ&story=flight
Spring Stories
Jorinda and Joringel
Crystal Ball
Cunning Little Tailor
Any Time
Hansel and Gretel Little Red Cap
The Raven The Ugly Duckling
The Willow Wren The Nixie of the Millpond
Websites:
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/folktexts.html
http://www.worldoftales.com
www.mainlesson.com/
List of public domain books of tales: http://karenchace.blogspot.com/2012/07/public-
domain-v-folktales-fairytales.html
African collection: http://www.english-for-students.com/African-Folk-Tales.html
https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/28558.Verna_Aardema (African tales by Verna
Aardema)
Japanese collection: http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/72/japanese-fairy-tales/
https://www.freunde-waldorf.de/en/wow-day/fairy-tales/
(Collection of fairy tales from around the world by Waldorf One World project)